The Coby soundbar came I think on the 7th, I was out at the pool and saw the UPS guy with a handtruck and a few things on it so I went over and sure enough, there it was. For the sub-$100 price it's got decent sound and apartment-level wattage, but it has a couple really annoying foibles because it's Coby. First, the remote signals are so simple that any other remote will set it off - my TV remote pressing "1" turns off the soundbar, while the cable box remote's fast forward turns up the volume, that sort of thing. Second, and this is really frustrating, the unit powers down to a standby-type state whenever there's half a second of silence, like it's in power-saving mode, and then takes a whole second to come back whenever there's a sound - so pauses in dialogue for drama make a click as it powers down, and then the next line of dialogue is lost as it takes a moment to come back. Still, it does work bluetooth audio from my devices pretty well, and there's simply nothing close to this feature set in the pricepoint.

01-15-2013

El Chuxter

Gawd, after setting up Prime Video on the blu-ray and giving John Carter a test run (it being the first blu-ray I got, entirely for the Best Buy bonus disc), I believe I've finally gotten on that bandwagon. The video is clearer on JC, but, holy crap, the difference in audio is amazing.

And I tested Amazon by watching the first Twilight Zone ep in HD. I'm surprised a show that old can look that good (and it's no surprise that the episode, which is one I've never seen, is just that good in general).

01-16-2013

JediTricks

Welcome to the 21st century, my friend. I think my favorite thing about HD video, whether it's blu-ray or streaming, is the color depth - check out a classic Trek remastered episode on Amazon Prime (they have all the Trek shows) and it's stunning, or watch something like a modern Doctor Who or Sherlock episode ramp from SD to HD on Prime streaming video and the colors all of a sudden come alive.

I had my mom over a year ago and we cued up that first Twilight Zone in HD on Amazon Prime streaming, we both remembered it but were also impressed how good it looked. It's because they're taking the image from the film masters, not the syndication tapes (same reason why classic Trek can look so much better now than a show shot in the '80s).